Candidate slates poor accessibility to polling stations

Date Published: {J}

An independent candidate standing in the General Election on health and disability issues has hit out at the lack of wheelchair accessible polling stations in the Galway West constituency.

Eamon Walsh, chairman of Hope4Disability, has described as “deplorable” the treatment of people with disability by Galway County Council, which is repsonsible for the provision of polling stations.

He said that by their own admission, there were 15 polling staions in Galway which were not wheelchair friendly and that voters requiring accessibility had to apply in writing to have their registration transferred to an alternative polling station.

Mr Walsh stated that it was a disgrace that in the first instance the County Council cannot in 2011 provide disability access at all polling stations and then only give people one day to have an application in writing delivered to The Courthouse.

He said that mobile accessible polling stations were relatively simple to provide and is calling on the County Council to get them in place by polling day.

“There are many barriers for people with disabilities in exercising their right to vote, a constituency that arguably more than most need to be able to hold our politicians to account”, he said.

He further highlighted that due to the absence of ‘Legal Capacity’ legislation people with intellectual disabilities cannot exercise their vote as there is a blanket prohibition on any assistance to an individual in exercising their vote. Mr Walsh is calling on the incoming government to expedite this piece of legislation that has been promised and ‘in the pipeline’ for over four years now.

If elected Eamon Walsh says he is committed to driving an agenda of reform including the complete reframing of the failed National Disability Strategy. Central to this drive will be a call for the establishment of a Dáil Committee on Disability and Mental Health.

Mr Walsh is confident that a cross party reference group of Dáil members can be drawn together to support these reforms and provide an essential and unified voice for people with disabilities in the Houses of the Oireachtas.